Awkward
by ipsilon
Summary: You wake up from a three week long stay buried underground and think you can just pick up right where you left off, do you? Nathan has some things to figure out, all in all...
1. Chapter 1

What were the first words to pass through your lips having been dug up after three weeks buried alive, a continuous cycle of waking up underground, starving to death while waiting for your sometime psychic friend to hear your thoughts and find you, waking up again, screaming a bit, then times that by about three or four?

The answer was:

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

And then you kissed the ground a bit, mwah mwah mwah, rolled around in the grass a bit (not really thinking about the fact that a dog may have done his doodoos on it, I mean really, who cared), clapped eyes on said psychic friend/love of your life, babbled a quick disclaimer about the fact that you have just-woken-up-from-semi-eternal-slumber-breath, and that she'll just have to suck it up, and finally lay a big fat slobbery lingering kiss on her, knocking her not very politely to the ground into the aforementioned dubious grass.

Ignore spade-wielding onlookers assembled from former community service alumni for a while, clock them, then tell them you're grateful and all but you've got plans... they can stop and watch if they like that kind of thing but…


	2. Chapter 2

***

Morning sunshine on a just about cat-swinging sized council flat bedroom.

His thoughts were fluffy and pink.

He opened his eyes and there she was.

That beautiful woman.

Kelly, he sighed to himself happily.

He had never realised what a beautiful name that was. He had always kind of associated it with, well, chavviness. Or at the nicest, Lorraine Kelly. Or that bloke with a beard from Stars intheir Eyes. Underrated programme that, he'd always thought. Matthew Kelly.

Ahhh. Kelly. Lovely lovely Kelly.

Kelly Young? Or double-barrelled maybe? Kelly Young- … Jesus, he suddenly realised. He didn't even know what her last name was!

Should he wake her up and ask her? Probs best not. No matter anyway, he'd make sure to nosey around her personal belongings a bit later and find out.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Sleeping like a log. No not a log. Sleeping like a baby.

Had he ever felt like this about a girl, nay, woman before?

What was this feeling? Ah, it was like a warm summer's day and sunshine on a winter's morning. Both of those things. At the same time.

What spell had she cast upon him, devil woman?

Was that an X-factor's Best Bits DVD lying suspiciously open on her vanity table over there?

And what was this unfamiliar thought passing through his mind? The thought that… Jesus… the thought that he was fully aware of a girl's hideous terrible tastes and… eff him… he was still looking over at her… and eff him again…he still wasn't feeling like he needed to get the hell out of there before she started getting ideas about love and weddings and babies…

In fact… he weirdly felt like it might be nice if she got those ideas.

He sighed again and put his nose next to hers. For a dirty chav she still smelled so clean of a morning. Like fresh laundry.

Ahh. He needed to piss, truth be told, but, oh, it was like that line in that Aerosmith song.

How did it go again. Oh yeah. "Don't want to clooose my eyes. Don't want to fall asleep." Everyone knew the one. He might have to borrow it from his stepsister's collection next time he went in there, he mused. Seriously.

Actually, he noticed, judging by the rest of _her _collection, it looked like Kelly might actually have it over there on her shelf now that he looked.

Eff him a third time, he thought, shaking his head. He had just spent the night with a girl who liked X Factor and Aerosmith. And he didn't have the urge to stab his own eyes out. In fact he was actually thinking of spending the night with her again. But in the morning. And like… going to the park with her …and holding hands and going to the zoo and cooing over penguins.

Right, he suddenly chided.

This had to stop.

…Or, he squeed, catching another glance at her and swooning, at least be put on hold while he located her loo, and then he'd hop straight back in and give her a big cuddle.

What made a cuddle big? He'd never really thought about it before. Oh well.

He hoped she'd wake up soon. He really wanted to take the piss out of her Forever Friends pyjamas.

Haha, he sighed happily, getting up carefully and climbing over her.

It was going to be so much fun.

They were going to be happy. So, so, so happy.

He padded across her carpet and realised how cold out here it was. Ooh you could freeze your mammaries off in temperatures like this.

Better grab Kelly's pink dressing gown off the back of the door, he decided. Hoho.

She was definitely going to call him a poof, he smiled, fondly. What a mild homophobe she was sometimes. But what an otherwise nice one. His very own homophobe.

He slinked it off the hook but stopped suddenly.

What was this?

A man's coat?

Nathan felt his heart stop still. A dirty great chaffing chav man's coat sat under his beautiful Kelly's beautiful soft pink gown.

Nononnononono, his fragile little heart sang. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, he thought, panicking.

Now wait, Nathan, said the other more sensible part of him. Don't be Mr. Judgey, he chastised himself.

He had known before that she was a fallen woman. It hurt, he conceded. It hurt like a thousand daggers to the heart to be reminded that she had ever been anyone else's, he wasn't going to lie. But he was a forgiving sort. They were in love, he told himself, confidently… joyously. Oh! Love! This was finally it!

The coat must have belonged to that Lee.

We all knew about _him_, thought Nathan, scowling a little. We'd all read her texts that time they were bored and she'd left her phone out on the side by mistake at the community centre. And they'd laughed. Pfft. That wasn't news. Ha, try again Kelly. Whatever.

Call that promiscuous? Trying to scare him off with dirty little secrets from the past?

Well he'd nearly bedded a granny. Beat that.

Right, he thought, shaking off the momentary lapse of confidence and getting back to the business of emptying his bladder. Next job, find the loo, chez Kelly.

He went into the hallway of the flat.

FUCK, thought Nathan, stopping in his tracks. What was this now?

That looked worryingly like a big hairy bloke standing at the open front door with an argy bargy look on his face.

First instincts told him that he wasn't her brother. He concluded that in light of the fact that this man was overwhelmingly Asian. So he guessed that ruled out father or other family member as well.

His second feeling was that, this not being a family member, why then was he looking quite so pissed off to see a skimpily attired man coming out of Kelly's room?

Nathan gulped.

As the large man came physically nearer and nearer, the delightful, recently discovered feeling of new love- what would Fleetwood Mac call it? BIG love- was replaced by something else.

Pain. Big big pain.

And not of the pink and fluffy feelings kind…


	3. Chapter 3

It was too much. Just… too much.

Nathan trudged his way home, down the same old familiar street he had walked down so many times as a teenager. He had hated it even then.

His heart had been ripped out. Everything looked somehow different.

He passed by the old familiar faces.

Mrs. Goggings, the old school dinner lady who had sometimes done some cleaning for his mum.

Mr. Sadiique, the corner shop owner who had always shown his disapproval of his younger selve's choice of publication purchase.

He had been a meek and mild-mannered thirteen year old Irish kid, wet about the ears when he moved here. Yet it was these very innocent looking surroundings –the Leafy Oak estate itself- which had turned him into the marginalised, recidivist that he was today.

And there it was again.

That old same look in their eyes.

Suspicion. Judgement. Anti-papism.

You might even posit that he was just too good-looking and charming a package for these limp-limbed Sassenach bastards to handle – that was the conclusion he usually went with.

But today that suspicion- that mistrust- was paired with something else.

He couldn't quite place it.

He went for broke. You had to placate these people.

"Look, Mrs. Anderson, I'm sorry you had to see this," he said grabbing a stray polystyrene cup from a wall and shielding the correct area.

He wouldn't usually be apologetic over something as natural as the human body but to be fair to the lady, one didn't necessarily expect to see such delights at half eight. At a cricket match or on a Saturday night perhaps.

He guffawed modestly and rubbed his eyes wearily. "Trust me, this is _not_ one of my usual stunts, I have had one hell of a morning, you would not believe actually."

He furrowed his brow. "Okay, I understand your shock but you _can_ stop screaming now…" he began, but she was off.

This was all, he mused, very surreal.

For one thing Mrs Anderson was definitely no stranger to Nathan's penis. Not in that way, but they did have facing windows so some light mutual flashing was only to be expected to have occurred at some point over the years. Her husband had binoculars and he knew for a fact her old man wasn't the only one who made use of them.

But now she was running and she was running fast. It was as though they were strangers.

He stared after her for a second.

Odd.

He shrugged and turned on his heels.

Ahead of him was the house. The semi-detached his mother had worked all the hours god sent after his father left in order to keep up the payments.

He knew he had done her wrong before now but in his time of need it was the only place he could go.

His night with Kelly had eclipsed all else. It had changed everything. He was a new man. His life as it had been before that night didn't matter anymore. Pah! Yesterday? The night before last? Last week? He barely remembered any of it!

Sure she had channelled her grief at his absence in an unconventional way. Getting wasted and waking up in Gretna Green married to a Glaswegian? Well that could have happened to anyone.

That beating this morning had been a wakeup call. He had never been in love before. He was going to cut himself a break for once. Some things didn't fall to you on a plate.

He was confident if a bit shaken. He didn't really know what his next move was but he knew where many of his big questions had been answered before and that was over a plate of sausage eggs and bacon arranged in a smiley face in his mum's kitchen in that very house.

He rang the doorbell.

"Before you say it, I am sorry," he said apologetically, earnestly. "I'm sorry you had to find out about it like this…" he coughed and continued. "It was a peer pressure thing, I got it done when I was sixteen for a dare. If it's a consolation it hurt like hell and the jokes on me now really because piercings are very nineties now, so I'm told."

Thump. She fainted.

"Mum are you okay?" cried Nathan, crouching down.

A man in a dog collar emerged from behind her- Nathan reasoned that possibly made him a priest although you could never rule out fancy dress party or hen night stripper.

Now, the sight of a man screaming in his face in such a fashion as he was at that second would usually be highly humorous but he had other things on his mind. He was more worried that the sheer sight of him seemed to be causing people to drop on the ground in a faint as though having borne witness to an apparition.

Was his power a _double_ power maybe? Immortality coupled with death at the sight of his member? He grinned. In your faces once again Kelly _et al_. Who was the superhero now?

He carried his mother through in to the sitting room and laid her down on the sofa, then made his way back into the hall to do the same for the old priest.

They were emotional people sometimes, these Catholics.

He looked around and smiled fondly but confusedly. She sure had furnished her living room with a lot of pictures of her only son since he'd last called round.

"Oh." He suddenly shot, realising what the thing he was supposed to mention but couldn't remember was.

The pictures, the black clothing, the priest.

So much had happened in the past 12 hours it hardly seemed like the world was keeping up.

They were still on that whole 'supposed to be dead' thing.

He scratched his head miserably.

"Right…" he said, basically to himself, as ironically, haha, he was actually the only one still standing at that point.

This was going to take quite some lying. Some complex, convincing and imaginative lying…


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The familiar feeling of cold. Damp and FUCKING cold. He was a homeless again.

His mam hadn't wasted much time booting him out. She'd been very pleasant when she'd first come around, but it hadn't taken much longer than three cups of tea for her to remember again why she'd decided she wanted him out in the first place.

He groaned and gathered his thin jacket around him.

You never felt skinnier than after a night with your knees and ankles knocking against the ground. At least the coffin had been quite nice and padded.

He had always hated being skinny. In a previous life he would have made up for it with his cherub like features and curls. But there wasn't much to work with when you hadn't washed, let alone conditioned, your hair in upwards of three weeks.

He blinked slightly into the sunshine. It was getting quite nice and warm now thank god. He huddled into himself and grinned idiotically into the sunshine. You could afford to not care about gormlessness of facial expression after what he'd been through.

But now, what was this? A heavy shadow suddenly blocked the warm rays.

"Oh aaaaaye."

There was a shuffling. It sounded for the world like Ugg boots.

"What yer dooeen dahn therrre? Look at yoh, right scrubber you arh!"

Such heavenly sounds to his ears. Surely they could have only been uttered by an angel?

He opened his eyes tentatively. There she was towering over him. Bloody nice she looked, as well.

"Kelly…"

An unusual feeling tickled his cheeks. Was this what people felt when they were embarrassed? He hadn't really known embarrassment before. People like him didn't feel the stings of everyday embarrassment as a rule- that was for people who had shame.

Shite. He was unshowered, garbed in dress salvaged from the overspill of a clothes bank, moneyless, wretched… and smelling to high heaven. She couldn't see him like this. What did he say to her? What did people in love with other people say to one another?

And she had hurt him. She had got off with that bloke while he was freshly buried. Fucking bitch.

Panic overtook him. This was not a time to be trying out new things. This was all so unfamiliar: the first postcoital meeting with a girl he had spent intimate time with, who he had to actually see again, nay, who he actually _wanted_ to see again.

This was all wrong, screamed his conscience.

This was all wrong.

Nathan had turned into someone he couldn't even recognise. Love was supposed to be a force for good but look where it kept getting him.

No. No no no.

Best to stick to what he knew. This had to stop here.

He stumbled onto his feet and summoned up his bastardiest sneer.

"Oh," he started, scrabbling for some sort of conversation point to work with. He tried to assume the air of someone who hadn't just been caught sleeping in a doorway on the waterfront and had simply bumped into her while out on very important business that he was at pains to be interrupted in.

"Did you just say something? I thought I just heard some sort of… guttural foreign noise or something being uttered… it sounded a bit like… I don't know… some sort of poor person noise."

Damnit, thought Nathan. That was low of him. He liked his barbs to have a sting to them but broaching class issues was a bit below the belt even for him.

Kelly looked at him, in her adorable scallyly way. She looked slightly hurt.

His heart nearly broke. This was really tough.

She brought a highly acryliced nail to her mouth nervously and then changed her mind like she wanted to nibble it but was trying not to.

"I just come 'ere to see if you were arrh righ?" She stuttered. She looked abashed, pink slightly. "I wann'ed to explain abou' yestuhrday marningg un tha' bloke and tha'… it wasn't what it looked lahke. He's just a mate of me muhm's, he was just wahnding you up lahke."

Her face was earnest and open, her eyes glistening slightly. She seemed a little bit embarrassed too. It had probably taken lots of guts for her to say… well, whatever it was she had just said.

He noticed that she had worn her hair down today. It was soft-looking and fluffy and free of flammable chemicals. This was a relief as she had one lit cigarette in her hand and another tucked behind her ear. Cutely. It was probably another sign she was really nervous, bless her, she chain-smoked like Pat Butcher when she was nervey. He had noticed that.

"So are yoh?" she said. "Are yoh arllrigh'? You look a bit poorlay, have you eaten owt?"

He felt his face softening.

He smiled at her a little, and stepped forward. She was quite small really. He gestured to her ear, asking silently if he could bum a fag.

She handed it over in an instant, like it was some sort of food ration for the poor.

God she was generous.

He looked at her for a while and then sighed. "I am all right, yes. And no, we don't have to talk about anything. You don't have to explain…"

He looked away. What the hell. He felt the voices in his head urging him not to say it but he couldn't help it. The words were pulling at his lips:

"You look… nice today."

Shit. God fucking damn this girl. He was going to have to go and scrape down his tongue or something with one of those things they advertise on youtube. What a sickening, over the top, gushing, despicable thing to have passed through his lips. How could he live with himself after having come out with such a thing? People who said things like that had no right not to be strung up, how could he claim to be an exception anymore?

And now she was stepping closer and smiling shyly.

And his hand was reaching out…

"Oooh-whit-whooo!" sang a voice from around the corner.

It was Alisha. Followed shortly after by Curtis. Who echoed her sentiments.

Quite the comedy act they were these two, these days. Apparently.

And they did it again. That most feared of school-ground taunts. Nathan knew he should not let the power of the 'whitwhoo' extend to sabotage his adult romantic life, but dear god it was a powerful thing.

"So I take it..?" Simon began timidly, looking between Nathan and Kelly.

Nathan panicked and stepped away. "You take what?"

That uncomfortable reddening feeling about the cheeks was resurfacing. The embarrassment hit like a ton of bricks.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!" Nathan garbled shrilly. "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

There was silence.

Alisha broke the silence. "Weell, you and Kell! You're having a 'moment'!" she said smiling knowingly. "It's okay, it's sweet! We don't think lesser of you for it or anything Nathan, if anything it's niice!"

Simon piped up again too. "Maybe we should leave them to it."

He laughed theatrically loudly. Still silence. He went for broke and made his best 'get-a-load-of-this-guy' face at Simon.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" he said probably slightly too loudly. "This is NOT a moment! You don't need to 'leave us to it'" he half shout manically, as though uttering dirty words. I WAS JUST TELLING KELLY HER BOOBS LOOKED NICE BUT SHE PROBABLY OUGHT TO LAY OFF THE POUNDS. Okay? Is that okay?"

He looked at the faces around him. They didn't seem convinced enough. He needed to do something a little bigger. He looked in Kelly's direction and before he could think about it properly, grabbed her aforementioned breastal areas and made a theatrical squeezing gesture.

There. That would do it. Masculinity reasserted. Another thought popped into his head: his squeezing Kelly's boobs might actually confirm rather than dispel embarrassing accusations of single-partner grown-up love type relations.

Best do something about that quickly too.

He looked around wildly.

"And oh look Simon, you'll appreciate this, fine specimen of heterosexual that you are!" Nathan half-hollered, gesturing relievedly towards a passing female who might hopefully shift their attention. "MORE large boobs to behold! This is a very good day for boobs all round. Not a good day for what you were talking about just now though. Whatever you were about to suggest. About me and Kelly. So yeah I guess I'll just go and ask this woman out. For sex. See what she thinks."

Kelly's face was folding up. He hadn't seen her cry before. Right. So that was what that looked like. It wasn't that nice a thing to see actually. It was making him feel pretty horrible. Alisha and Simon looked like they wanted to lynch him on her behalf.

He stubbed his cigarette out quickly and figured it might be time to leave.

"Hmm…" he squeaked, surveying the bloodied battleground. "See yers!"

He strode towards the randomly selected lady in question confidently, not looking back.

What was he doing? Bloody hell.

It wasn't really news to him that he had no self control but fuck, this was like his legs and mouth were just flagrantly disregarding all other input from say conscience, good taste, decency.

He could feel their eyes burning his retreating back.

He didn't look at the lady in the face before he did it, but his expression was shockingly close to apologetic as he went in for his second round of inappropriate boob-squeezing in as many minutes. In retrospect, looking back, he supposed his actions were just those of a man so dedicated to his vocation as entertainer that he could not let the opportunity to round off his performance slide so easily and seeing as his friends were still gawping at him as he went how could he resist.

Big-boob lady was almost business-like as she dished out a very efficient slap. Nathan, obviously, was not hugely surprised. People who indulge in that kind of behaviour tend to know what they're getting themselves into, repercussions-wise.

What did surprise him was the snap movement of her other hand as she whipped out a leather bound police badge.

"Nathan Young?" She inquired. "C.I.D. Do you watch the Bill?"

"No, but I think I know what you might be about to say. I mean, I haven't got the faintest idea what this might be to do with, of course." He gulped. "But am I by any chance, nicked?"

She smiled serenely and two uniformed officers appeared at her side.

"You are yes. We are going to be taking you into custody following some reports of indecent behaviour on the part of your neighbours, and I'd say you've more than satisfied our inquiries into that." She nodded. "You do not have to say anything," she began cheerfully "but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you _later rely on in cour-_"

"Yeah ok," he groaned. He lowered his voice. "I do watch the Bill, as it goes, so you can save your breath." He shook himself out, and cooperated. Best do this with dignity if he was going to do it.

"Do me a favour?" he asked quietly. "See that group of young people over there? The unseemly looking ones? Are they watching this?"

The police officer nodded.

"Do they look upset, or are they laughing? Especially the girl, do you see her, the one with the long hair? Does she seem impressed?" He tried to glance around but the police lady's male colleague pinned him to the wall.

"I wouldn't say so."

At that point he was roughly repositioned by the bloke so they could check his front, so he did a get a decent view of Kelly's reaction. Or rather, lack of. She was facing away, studiously, over the lake. Could she hear thoughts with her back turned like that?

He screwed his face.

"KELLY. If you are listening: please please please help me."

He couldn't see her face but she flinched a bit, in what looked like a 'hmmph'.

"It doesn't have to be now if you don't like. You can just swing by if you like a bit later. Once I've been punished a bit. Maybe sort out some bail for me?" Another hmmph.

Jesus. Was this really going to have to be the time for him to say those words he so very much despised having to say. The angle of her upturned nose suggested perhaps yes.

"KELLY I'M SORRY! I'M REALLY REALLY SORRY! I was just showing off! Everyone saw us together and I was scared because… don't make me say it… please don't make me say it… I was scared because… "

He still couldn't see her face but she glanced quickly in his direction, stonily intrigued.

"Listen, we'll save the heart to heart for some other time, can you please just come over here and tell them it wasn't me and Simon did it or something."

She looked like she was about to fold and come over and help, but then Alisha poked her and gave her a stern girl-to-girl look, so she seemed to change her mind and just shrugged.

The police woman followed his gaze again and cast her eyes suspiciously back at his community service cohorts. At this they all turned their backs hurriedly too, in what Nathan knew to be guilt and fear of being apprehended themselves. Har har har.

He gave them his best 'oops' expression and little wave from a distance.

Much glowering ensued and he was trundled off towards the back of a car.

They were pretending to gaze out at the water as though simply out taking the air. Great acting. Not. Just enough fear to try and attempt some kind of cover but too nosey not to stick around to see what went down. Nice to see loyalty among thieves. Well they weren't all thieves. You know, criminals. Anyway.

"I'll try not to mention anything about you-know-what," he called out to his quotations marks with two finger 'friends' in what he hoped was a stage whisper, just as the car door was shut in his face. Curtis and Simon both looked horrified and looked to engage in some internal "doh"-ing, again in a manner that was externally very obvious. Doh themselves.

The police woman looked back at him.

"What was that?" she said suspiciously.

"Oh nothing!" he said sweetly. He caught a glance at the badge on her dashboard. "Ha, is your name really Beverley?"

There was a stoney silence. He guessed yes.

Nathan looked out the window and did a mini-appraisal of the situation.

The police woman had copped an accidental feel of his balls as she was frisking him so it wasn't all bad. But otherwise the situation did look to be mainly heading downhill.


	5. Chapter 5

NB. Sorry this took so long. I'm kind of continuing with the storyline as it was, with no reference to the new series. I hope it isn't too confusing. Also, and sorry to be needy, but if you're reading do let me know. I know it is a bit of a mess so wouldn't blame you for not bothering but it is nice to know if people are out there and want me to continue etc...

CHAPTER 5

She shivered and wrapped the duvet around her. A summer duvet, a winter's morning. She should go over and turn the light on. She should go over and turn the heating up. She should get dressed, wash her hair, put some clothes on. Leaving the house clothes.

She wasn't tired but she closed her eyes anyway. Her body was sick of bed but she couldn't move.

"Kellay," shouted her mum. "Kellayyyy. What yuh doeen een thur? Ged ooop!"

"I aaam," Kelly said, burying herself further.

She liked her mum's accent. She liked the sounds. lt was like their own language. Noone else understood anything she said around here. Sometimes her and her mum just talked like that in the house because they could. It was like a reminder of home, her real home, in this nobhead, nasal, southern English town, with its nobhead, insular, concrete blocks.

She had to get up sometime, it was just that today looked like it might be harder than others.

Nathan was still incarcerated. He was still a dickhead. She rang the police station. His bail still remained unpaid.

##

The sky. White.

Ground icy. Black Ugg boots on, hair up, out of her face, out of the wind.

_Does she think she looks good like that_? asked a stranger's thoughts somewhere in the vicinity.

She swiped her hand across her bottom lip aggressively, face hardening, looking around.

_No_, she answered, jaw clenching. She didn't think she looked good. She didn't think she looked anything. She didn't care how she looked. Why was that so fucking hard to understand?

She made eye contact with a man coming towards her. She couldn't stand people who thought they could make eye contact with her. Look her up and down. Sum her up in a nice catch-all word. Scally. Pikey. Chav.

It unnerved her.

She would have asked him what he was looking at but she didn't. She was being good now. She was keeping her head down. She was on a mission.

She raised her eyes to the sky and counted to herself until the anger went away.

It was still grey up there.

A building loomed ahead. Stop 1, this was: the hole in the wall.

She put her cash card in. She stabbed in the PIN and read the not very surprising numbers on the screen. She pushed 'return card' but it was no good, the card apparently liked it in there. No good seeing if the bank would get it out for her. There might be one or two questions asked, since last time's fray with the cashier. She hadn't managed to get any money out that time either but she had walked away with a fistful of the branch manager's hair extensions in her hands.

This time she was coming away with fuck all.

Great.

##

Stop 2. An unusually glassy and spacious abode on the edge of the estate.

She walked through the overgrown front garden and knocked on the door. It was open a bit so she walked in, through a lovely arrangement of houseplants, into the kitchen where a friendly-faced man was simmering something curious while watching Nigella Lawson on a flat screen tv. All in all a very cosy scene and, greeting the proprietor, an old acquaintance, she was reluctant to decline his kind offer of a puff of whatever he was partaking of. However, important matters had to be seen to.

She put it to him straight:

"Have you got owt doing on the business end of things, lahk?"

The man winced and asked her repeat herself. She sighed, appalled once again at these people's inability to understand plain English. She was accustomed to humouring them however so she just went on.

"Biiiznees," she intoned patiently, speaking nice and slowly. "Would you liiiiike me to seeeeell some of your weeed to me friends laaaahk?"

It turned out he was quite receptive to that offer. So that was good. Only thing was, the amount of money came up short of what the magistrates were demanding and he said he couldn't really part with more.

That posed something of a problem.

##

Stop 3. A less cosy set-up. Even further out of town, half a mile or so down the side of the dual carriageway, left under the national speed limit sign, into the caravan park.

Approaching the caravan in question, she proceeded with some trepidation this time.

Not least because of the weird screams, explosions and crackling emanating from inside, this place smelled just a little of evil. That or crack. She didn't like it either way.

She had been there before: when she was younger her older sister Maria had been a frequent visitor to this place, the caravan where the boyfriend of her best friend Shell had lived, worked, conducted business.

She had never really been in herself. Maria had usually been slumped outside the times she'd been here, which made it easier for Kelly when she'd had to heave her along on her side back home after a particularly eventful evening, shoving her into a taxi and then tucking her into bed before their stepdad at the time came in and realised they'd been gone.

Believe it or not, Kelly had always actually been the good one…

She knocked on the door.

A deadened ghoulish face peered out.

"Oh alll right Kelley my love," smiled the ghoul, genuinely happy to see her, but fucking 'ell, she might have thought about sorting herself out with some false teeth by now. Kelly looked down.

"Oh. Shell?" Kelly said, in nervous surprise. "Arr right? Didn't know you were still around." _I.e. not in prison, or dead_, Kelly added to herself, brainwardly, stopping short of saying that aloud, of course, as that could probably be construed as rude.

She didn't really want to engage with this girl. She could hear the beginnings of guilty questions in her mind as she recalled their last encounter. She could see that in her drug-addled brain the memory of some past event was stirring… Kelly Bailey. Maria Bailey. People having heroin overdoses. A funeral she hadn't been invited to.

Kelly put a stop to all that right there and then. She didn't care to talk about any of that, presently.

She had on-off love interest annoyingly lovable Irish people to bail out.

So again, this required succinctness of expression, the direct approach.

"Gear," she stated. "Have you got any? I'll get it back to you at a good price. No I don't usually do this," Kelly assured her, replying to the other girl's thoughts directly to save a bit of time.

_And yes_, Kelly added in her own head, _my sister is still dead partly because of her friendship with you_. Yes, she did still hate the girl for playing a part in fucking up her and her family's lives, ripping out her emotional core, robbing her of her own best friend and confidante. Etcetera etcera. But the crunch was that Kelly was a charitable soul so she didn't really like bearing grudges. Apparently her uncle growing up had been a paedophile. So you couldn't really blame the poor girl for that. Well you could, but she wasn't going to.

Suddenly a man's voice could be heard from behind her inside the caravan. The whole place rocked as footsteps approached the door.

"'Ere is that little Kelly?" a similarly ghoulish male face appearing around the door. "Oh int you grown up all lovely looking."

"Yeah mate," Kelly mumbled. She was getting a bit nervous now really.

"'Ee yarr, did I hear right that you's after some cash, babe?"

Yes, she nodded.

"Well, don't you worry about selling for us, not very dignified that. I've got one or two other jobs lined up actually, " he smirked. "Might take your fancy. Cash up front."

Kelly knew straight away what job that might be, what with being psychic and all.

This was a slight dilemma in a way. To put it bluntly she effectively had a choice between giving someone a blowjob for cash, or Nathan having to spend another night in the slammer, possibly equally having to perform oral pleasure to people of unknown quantities, most likely for no monetary reward.

It wasn't that part of her didn't think that might do him some good, but she guessed she must just be a soft touch, because the thought of him suffering did make her ill. She wasn't sure quite what spell he had on her but she was the type of girl who went off gut instinct. Gut instinct was telling her that this needed to be done.

Kelly felt her skin crawl and her teeth chatter nervously.

Nathan, she whispered to herself. She stepped inside.

##

Kelly waited in the police station waiting room. It was like everywhere else in this town. Same bricks, same lino, same grey.

Nathan wasn't grey. He was orange and green. Green eyes. His hair was black. Shiny black.

He wasn't better than any of the others in any real way: he lied, he definitely stole, and it wasn't just that he was a dickhead, he was actively a bad person nearly all of the time.

She loved his guts though.

Shivering a little, and not from cold this time, she put her face in her hands and inhaled deeply, shakily. What a fucked up thing love was that it allowed these things to happen. And yet here she was again.

He sauntered through the door and caught her eye. Eye contact.

From him, she needed it. It reinforced for her that the things she caught him thinking were real.

His voice was nervously making some kind of weak oddball remark about some bullshit or other.

His eyes were eating her up for dinner.

His thoughts, though, his thoughts were always the best part with him. Thank you, they said.

Sorry for being a dick, they said.

It had only been 24 hours, but it was the nicest thing she'd heard in so long. She had been parted from him for long enough already. Any more was just not allowed at this point.

She wrapped her arms around him, tightly. He was surprised but he relaxed into it, happy, relieved.

"I do owe you one, you know," he said weakly into her hair. "Several ones."

"Yep, you most certainly fucking do," she replied, muffled, into his jumper.

"What's up?" he asked, looking uncharacteristically like he actually might care.

"Nothing," she asked looking up at the underside of his chin, too knackered to form a sentence. "Chicken nuggets?"

"Chicken nuggets," he replied.


End file.
